


people don’t understand (people like me)

by whitchry9



Series: my name is connor, i'm the autistic sent by cyberlife [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Crafts, Emotions, Friendship, Gen, Stimming, aac, autistic characters, connor names emotions, having autistic friends is the best okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 20:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Apparently, Connor isn't the only autistic android. He meets some of the others and also learns about crafts.(At least one of those things goes well.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> me: what if there were... more autistic androids  
> :O
> 
>  
> 
> Title is coincidentally the theme song of Alphas, a great show that died before its time and also featured an autistic character who owned my heart.

“Hey Connor,” Markus greeted. His back was to Connor, a paint palette in his one hand, a brush in the other.

“Hello Markus.”

Connor examined the canvas for a moment. He didn’t think the painting was complete, but he could see parts of a landscape. It was somewhat horrifying, a dark sky lit up by a bolt of lightning, bodies strewn across the ground.

The junkyard.

 

Markus turned to face him. “So what brings you here today?”

“I had to tell you something,” Connor blurted out, tearing his eyes from the painting. If he dreamed, it might give him nightmares. He’d heard stories about the junkyard.

Markus softened somehow. “It’s the painting, isn’t it?”

He set down the brush and palette and shifted the easel so that the canvas was facing away from Connor.

“Why don’t we sit?” he suggested, pointing towards a couch.

 

Connor nodded and sank into it.

 

“So. Have to tell me something, huh? Not bad, I hope. Nothing police related?”

Connor shook his head. Hank would have accompanied him if that were the case. Instead he had walked over, leaving Hank at home watching some sporting event.

“It’s more… personal.” Connor considered how to say it, and planned out a number of different simulations, but decided that the best way was probably also the most straightforward.

 

“I’m autistic,” Connor said. It made him feel… something. A strange mixture of pride, shame, and defiance.

“I know it doesn’t really make sense, because we’re androids, and we’re programmed, so I shouldn’t be neurodivergent, but we also weren’t supposed to have emotions and become conscious, so…”

 

Markus was holding a hand up and smiling. “Connor. It’s okay. You don’t need to explain it to me.”

 

“Oh,” Connor said. It was a lot easier than he expected. From what he could gather, it was common for people to be told ‘but you don’t look autistic’ or ‘but my [distance acquaintance] is autistic and you’re nothing like them’. “I thought it would be harder, or you might need more of an explanation.”

Markus shook his head. “Nah. You’re not the only one.”

 

Now that… Connor was not expecting.

 

 

* * *

 

 

His stress level was at 42%. There was an emotion in his chest that he couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t quite fear (nor should it be, he was safe) but it was similar. Perhaps trepidation.

 

The android in front of him smiled. She was a specialized one, one of the ones developed for social work. Connor wondered if she was there to participate in the group or to run it. He wasn’t sure he wanted someone running it.

“Hello I am a KL800. My name is Avery.”

“It is nice to meet you Avery,” he replied. “I am Connor. I’m an RK800.”

“Oh I know who you are,” she told him. “I think we all do.”

Well. That certainly didn’t put him at ease.

“It’s your first time here,” she said. “I would have noticed you before. I can introduce you to the others.”

 

She turned around and led him towards the others in the room.

“This is Connor,” she announced, and the other androids turned towards them. His stress level went up 2% as they focused their attention on him.

“Connor, this is Shane, Emilia, and Alex,” she told him, pointing to each of them in turn.

 

Shane was an AC700, a type frequently used as personal trainers. Emilia was an ST300. He’d met quite a few of that model before, often working as receptionists. The DPD had them before, and some had chosen to come back to work afterwards. Alex was a TR400, meant for heavy work, and he towered over Connor.

 

Shane waved.

“Hi Connor,” Emilia said.

 

“Sometimes Evan is here. He’s a child model,” Avery explained. “But his family is out of the city right now. So far, that’s all of us. None of us have really been diagnosed, exactly, because… well, it’s too complicated. But I’ve been talking to some other androids, ones who taught psychology, health care aides, a few that want to become psychiatrists. They all agree that if we were human, we would be diagnosed as autistic. Markus said that someone else might be coming by this week, but he didn’t say it would be you.”

Connor nodded. He wasn’t sure if a response was required for that. His social module was failing him yet again. If one of these androids was a threat to themselves or others, he could handle it, but he couldn’t handle a simple conversation.

 

“You still have your LED,” Shane observed. “You’re anxious. Are we making you anxious?”

He must have been flashing yellow.

“No, I’m just… uncertain,” he explained. “I wasn’t sure what to expect. But Markus told me that you meet every other week, and I wanted to come.” _To meet others like me. I didn’t think anyone could be like me._

 

“Sometimes we do crafts,” Emilia said. “Markus came by one time and tried to show us how to paint. I wasn’t very good at it,” she admitted.

 

Connor received a flash of a canvas, containing a self portrait of Emilia, but it didn’t look like the android standing in front of him. Everything was misplaced, but not in the way Connor had seen in other styles of painting, just simply unsettled. Along with the image was a sensation of disappointment. Emilia had been disappointed in her work.

 

“I don’t know how to paint,” Connor offered. “Or do any crafts.”

 

“I’m doing cross stitching now. You can see that if you want,” Emilia offered.

Connor nodded, moving closer to her.

Avery moved behind him, closer to Alex, who still hadn’t said anything. Connor could see them interfacing out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t want to seem rude.

 

Emilia pulled out a piece of fabric from a bag at her feet. She smoothed it out.

 

Connor examined it. The piece wasn’t finished, but the text was. There were three different shades of blue that were making up a pattern around the outside, but were still being worked on, with some of them only half stitched.

 

“It’s beautiful,” he said, handing it back to her.

“I copied it off a pattern I found. The words… they remind me.”

“Yes,” Connor agreed softly.

 

“Would you like to learn?” she asked, looking up at him. He looked away from her gaze. “You don’t have to,” she added quickly. “Shane doesn’t usually make anything. He just likes hanging out. You can just talk if you want. Or listen.”

“Last time we talked about whether we liked nice textures or nice sounds better. It was half and half. The time before that we bought a bunch of stim toys and tried them out. I really liked the necklace that spins. Do you have a favourite stim toy?”

“I like tangles,” Connor offered. “And I have calibration exercises that I do with a coin. I realized that’s probably a stim too.”

Avery twisted her hands around and flapped them. “I love tangles! I have two of them.”

Shane was rocking slightly in his seat, and Alex still hadn’t said anything. Perhaps he was nonverbal. Connor took a second to consider how he communicated before turning his attention back to Emilia, who was tracing her fingers over the raised letters of her cross stitch.

 

“I think I would like to try a craft,” he decided.

Emilia bounced up in the air twice. “Awesome! Okay, do you want to do cross stitching? We also have some paint and canvases. Maybe you’ll do better than me.”

“Shane brought the ingredients to make slime,” Avery said. “You could try that if you want.”

Connor shuddered at the thought of slime touching him. “No. I… really don’t.”

Avery laughed. “It’s not for everyone,” she agreed, “but it’s one of Alex’s favourite textures.”

“I think I’d like to try cross stitching,” Connor said, looking up at Emilia.

She nodded. “I’ve got lots of extras. Do you know what you’d like to make?”

 

“I live with a dog,” Connor told them, and that was all he got out before Alex was applauding. He beamed across the room.

“You like dogs?” Connor asked.

Alex nodded, attention still on the slime ingredients. Connor couldn’t see past the giant bottle of glue, which made him wince a little bit. Glue got _everywhere._ He would be sure to stay far away from that side of the room.

“What’s your dog’s name?” Shane asked.

“Well, he’s not mine. He belongs to the man I live with. His name is Sumo.”

“The man or the dog?” Avery asked.

“The dog. The man’s name is Hank Anderson. We work together.”

 

Alex hummed, squeezing a large amount of glue into a bowl.

 

There was a flash of images, dozens of different breeds of dogs.

Connor tilted his head. “You’re asking what kind of dog he is?” he guessed.

 

Alex hummed again, higher pitched this time. Connor thought that meant _yes._

 

“Sumo is a Saint Bernard. He’s very big, and he’ll lay on me if I ask him to. Sometimes even if I don’t ask him to. I think I would like to make a cross stitch of Sumo.”

Emilia nodded. “Okay. We can look for a pattern of a dog, and then you can change it to look like Sumo. Unless you’re good at art, in which case you could probably design your own pattern.”

Connor frowned. “I’m… not good at art.”

 

He did a quick search for patterns of cross stitched Saint Bernards, and came across one he liked. He sent it to Emilia.

She giggled.

“What?” Connor asked.

“It’s just that you’ve never done this before, right? You should probably start with something simpler.”

A moment later she sent a different pattern back, one that wasn’t a close up of a face, but the entire body of a dog, in less detail.

“This does seem… easier,” Connor admitted.

“You can still do the other one later, but it’s best to start out with something less complicated so you don’t get frustrated.”

 

Another moment passed and she sent it to him again, this time with a chart overlaid on top, counting out the stitches.

She passed him a piece of the cloth, which was specifically for cross stitching, Connor could see, with defined rows and spots for the stitches to go.

 

Emilia helped him pick out the colours, then showed him how to mark the rows and columns on the fabric so he could keep track of the pattern. Then he threaded the needle and just… sat there.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted. He could have downloaded hundreds of hours of video tutorials, read every book about cross stitching that had been published, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to learn with his hands and these new friends he had found.

“Try one of the corners,” Emilia suggested. “Or if you’re starting with the white, maybe the front paw.”

Connor highlighted the stitches she was talking about on the pattern, and hesitantly poked the needle through the fabric. It would be fine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Connor had pierced his finger no fewer than seven times at the end of an hour, and he was thankful that at least Hank wouldn’t be able to see the evidence of his injuries on the finished product. Which, by his estimates, would be done in about seven weeks at his current pace.

 

“Maybe I’m not cut out for this,” he said, looking between his piece and Emilia’s, which had progressed much more than Connor’s in the same period of time.

 

“Hmm,” Emilia said, looking at it. “It might take a while, but it will look nice when it’s done. And the thirium dries up.”

Connor frowned, but hummed. He was willing to trust her on that.

 

“We made purple slime and green slime,” Avery announced.

 

The container of glue had been moved off the table, so Connor could see the two piles of slime that were oozing their way around the table and between fingers as it was played with.

 

Alex had his hands full of purple slime and was dripping it back and forth, watching it stretch and slip with the force of gravity.

Connor had to admit it looked nice, but he still wasn’t going to touch it.

Alex saw him watching.

 

Images of slime, a plastic bag, and a home were transmitted.

 

Connor shook his head. “No thank you. I don’t want any.”

 

“I don’t like it when it’s being made, but it’s not bad now. It’s not sticky anymore,” Shane told him.

Avery scooped up a little pile of the green and brought it over to a table nearer Connor. She set it down.

“I won’t make you touch it, but you can give it a try.”

 

Connor tilted his head and examined the slime. It didn’t look sticky. There had been no traces of it left on Avery’s hands. He inched closer. The puddle was holding its own shape, with rounded edges. It was influenced by gravity, but it wasn’t about to spill off the table either.

He supposed he could spare a finger to poke it.

 

It was… not terrible. The smell left something to be desired, and he didn’t really like the texture, but remembering the way it flowed between Alex’s hands made Connor pause before rejecting it entirely.

 

Watching him, Alex sent an image of some sort of enclosed system with coloured liquid. When it was tipped upside down the liquid flowed through it, making pleasing shapes and patterns.

 

“Oh,” Connor breathed. “I like that.”

 

The next message was a website.

 

“Thank you Alex.”

 

Connor blinked as he received a text from Hank.

 

_coming 2 get u. ready 2 go?_

Connor rolled his eyes. Hank still texted like a teenager.

 

_I’ll be ready._

“I have to leave shortly,” Connor announced. “The man I live with is coming to pick me up.” He took a second to scan Hank’s recent purchases. Groceries, with a fair number of vegetables, and not as much alcohol as his previous patterns.

 

“Is he nice?” Emilia asked.

Connor laughed. “He’s…” Connor considered how to describe Hank. “He’s kind to me. He…” Connor trailed off. Why weren’t there any words for what Hank meant to him?

 

And then he realized. He didn’t have to use words.

 

He opened up a connection with the other four androids, making sure they were okay with it before sending memories through.

Their first meeting, even as poorly as it went. The first crime scene, when Hank listened to what he had to say. The interrogation, where Hank drew his gun to stop Reed. Waiting for Hank to show up at the office, exploring his desk. His ‘ _I like dogs_ ’. Hank ordering him to not follow the deviants (Kara and Alice, he knew their names now) onto the highway. The apartment where they found Rupert, when Hank ordered him to stand behind him. Connor pulling Hank up onto the roof, despite his high chance of survival. Failing his mission in order to keep Hank safe. Connor showing up at his house, diving through a window. First meeting Sumo. The Eden Club, the awkward way Hank avoided looking at the androids, how he apologized for ‘changing his mind’. Again telling Connor to stay behind him. Connor not shooting because he knew Hank wouldn’t. The park. The elevator. The deviant who ripped out Connor’s thirium pump and all Connor could wish for was for Hank to come back into the room and help him. Visiting Kamski, not shooting Chloe because Hank told him not to. The way Hank grabbed his shoulder, ushered him out. Hank punching Perkins so Connor could break into the evidence room. Going to Jericho.

 _Deviating._ It was Markus who pushed him over the edge, but it was Hank who pulled him along every step of the way. CyberLife tower, the horror he felt when Hank stumbled out at gunpoint, the gun held by someone wearing his face who was not him. Connor was brand new to emotions then, didn’t understand why he felt like his thirium pump had stopped working, didn’t understand why he couldn’t breathe when androids didn’t _need_ to breathe. He was _afraid_.

The hug at Chicken Feed. Hank letting him move in. Hank taking him to get clothes. Hank grudgingly walking him through the basics of emotions. Hank punching Reed that time he went too far. Hank picking up on Connor’s anxiety, his quirks. Hank realizing what Connor was before he did. Hank making that pamphlet, distributing it to the office, threatening them with death in order to keep Connor safe. Hank giving Connor his sunglasses and taking him out to lunch when it was too much and buying him tangles and carrying coins for him. Hank surprising him with a weighted blanket that first Christmas. Hank calling him son. The photo that sat next to Cole’s by the couch. Hank making him watch movies and introducing him to memes and forcing him to consume all that terrible millennial culture. Hank panicking when he got shot. Hank fussing over him that time he got a virus. _Hank._

It took maybe two seconds for him to transmit all this, all these weeks and months of living with Hank that Connor could never hope to express in words.

 

“He loves me,” Connor realized. That’s what the emotion was.

 

_outside_

Connor read the text and set it aside. “He’s here. I… thank you for having me today. It was good to meet all of you.”

 

Alex sent him a calendar with a date circled.

 

“Yes, I will be back,” Connor assured him. “Hopefully with the cross stitch looking a little better.”

Alex snickered, letting the slime ooze between his fingers. It looked nice, but Connor still didn’t want to touch it.

 

He waved goodbye to the others and headed to the car.

 

“Hello Lieutenant. I see you got groceries. I’m very happy that you remembered what I said about vegetables.”

“Yeah yeah, none of that Lieutenant shit while we’re not at work. How was your play date?”

As the car pulled away, Connor considered his question. “It was not a play date. I did learn how to cross stitch, and some of the others made slime, but the texture was… not appealing to me.”

“Oh yeah? What are you cross stitching?”

Connor resisted the urge to make sure it was well hidden inside his jacket. “You’ll have to wait until it’s done.” _And the thirium has evaporated._

“Uh huh. You gonna go back?”

“Yes. It’s nice having friends who understand.”

“Oh, I see how it is, I’m being replaced, huh?”

“No!” Connor blurted out. It took him a second to realize Hank was joking. Connor shook his head a little and sat back in his seat. “They are friends. You are family,” he said.

 

Hank didn’t say anything, but with his peripheral vision, Connor could tell he was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: okay but how would aac work with androids  
> friend: I don't know what aac is  
> me: [completely ignoring her] like I know they can communicate like, telepathically, but that's not what I want  
> friend: I am very lost  
> me: [still ignoring her] oh images, that's a good idea  
> friend: ...okay
> 
> Also the sequence of events that Connor describes is... idek, an amalgamation of different game endings, probably? I've only played through once, so let's pretend that it can happen this way, even if it can't.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made... art? Like Connor's, it did not go very well.

The quote, although not in the actual fic, is a sort of reference to The Adventure Zone, when Carey is making a duck, and it goes... very poorly.

 

 

And the watercolour version that I did first, because I'm Into That right now, then wanted to see what digital art could be like. (I am not good at either.)

**Author's Note:**

> Next one is going to be them figuring out that Connor is autistic, so sort of a flashback thing.
> 
> Also, if you have ideas for more, hit me up at ijustreallylovedaredevil.tumblr.com  
> I can't promise I'll write them, but right now I'm avoiding writing my thesis, so odds are good.


End file.
